A related-art electro-photographic image forming apparatus includes a sheet feed cassette which accommodates recording sheets, a sheet feed roller which is disposed on the front upper side with respect to the sheet feed cassette, an image forming section which is disposed on the rear upper side with respect to the sheet feed roller, a laser scanner which is disposed on the rear upper side with respect to the image forming section, a fixing section which is disposed on the rear side with respect to the image forming section, and a sheet discharge section which is disposed on the upper side with respect to the fixing section (refer to JP-A-2005-17425). The image forming apparatus is configured to transport the recording sheet in a substantially S shape in an apparatus main body.
Incidentally, in recent years, from the viewpoint of a degree of freedom of an installation location or a storage location of an image forming apparatus, size-reduction of the image forming apparatus in a vertical direction is desired. However, in the image forming apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2005-17425, the laser scanner is disposed on the rear upper side with respect to the image forming section, and thus size-reduction in the vertical direction is restricted.